


Lost Invitation

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-24 18:27:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22062427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "The Yetis help North host a party at the Pole a few days before Christmas to celebrate the Guardians’ accomplishments. All the Guardians are invited to the festivities. They exchange gifts and talk and dance and have a merry ol’ time. Until Pitch shows up at the door.Bonus if Pitch brings gifts and tries to be friendly."Oh gosh I went overboard with this. Light Blacksand and Rainbow Snowcone. Fluff everywhere. A lost invitation and elf bribery lead to happiness.
Relationships: Jack Frost/Toothiana (Guardians of Childhood), Pitch Black/Sanderson Mansnoozie
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21
Collections: Blacksand Short Fics, Rainbow Snowcone Short Fics





	Lost Invitation

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 6/2/2013.

Outside the large, warm room with its cheerful roaring fire, collection of comfortable chairs, and tables laden with food, the Workshop roars busily along in preparation for the 25th. Inside the room, however, there is to be no talk of that or of work of any kind, for that room is the location of the Christmas party North always hosts for his fellow Guardians.

So far, it’s been going well. If this wasn’t North’s domain, the eggnog, wassail, and mulled wine would be getting low by now, and there’s evidence of this in the way Tooth and a couple dozen of her fairies are trying to teach Jack to dance. “Like this!” she says, twirling in the air two and a half times before tilting off to the side and only managing to save herself from falling by landing for a moment.

Jack laughs. “I don’t think either birds or people dance like that.”

“Of course not!” Tooth says, giggling. She flies up close to Jack, looking him in the eyes with a serious expression on her face. “But I want you to know something, Jack. I. I am a _bird_ - _people_.” She suddenly smiles, rubbing her fingers over Jack’s cheek. “You’re still glittery!”

“It’s important to who I am,” Jack replies, pressing his hand over his heart and staring into the distance dramatically. “Just ask Sophie. Glitter equals fun.”

Sandy laughs silently, throwing his head back so that the mini-fairy sleeping in his hair almost falls to the floor. Earlier, he had conspired with a few elves to arrange surprise mistletoe attacks on all the Guardians. North, Bunny, and Tooth had all gotten kisses on the cheek, but Jack had tried to startle Sandy by turning towards him so he couldn’t avoid kissing him on the mouth. It hadn’t worked, of course, and instead of getting a flustered Sandy, Jack had gotten the sloppiest, most ridiculous, most dreamsand-infused kiss Sandy could manage, much to the amusement of the other Guardians. He’d be glittery until he got a good night’s sleep.

While Jack and Tooth continue to try to teach each other to dance, eventually bringing Sandy in as a moderator/floatation device, Bunny menacingly points a small fork at North while leaning against a table piled high with deserts. A paper crown is looped over one ear, and a paper tricorne balanced on the other.

“I’m just saying, North, that this is very stereotypical and I _should_ be annoyed by it.” He licks cream cheese frosting from his whiskers.

“If you don’t like, why have you eaten over half of cake?” North asks, reaching up to make sure his paper fez remains balanced on top of his paper sombrero.

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it! This _is_ the best carrot cake I’ve ever eaten. And it is my favorite. But it still sounds like the set up to a joke.”

“Bunny,” North says, flashing him a jovial grin. “If I wanted to set up joke, I would bring up Albuquerque incident.”

Bunny just sighs and shakes his head, looking down at the table. Three mini-fairies are sitting on the tablecloth, sharing a sugar plum between them and attempting to do ballet between bites. Based on how funny they seem to find this, the other crumbs around them are probably from a rum ball.

North’s about to offer Bunny another Christmas cracker when a yeti rushes into the room, babbling agitatedly and waving a piece of paper at North. From the color, North can tell it’s one of the invitations he sent to the Guardians for the party. All of them had handed their invitations to the yetis when they arrived—well, except for Sandy, who had lost his somehow, but that was only to be expected from the dreamy little fellow.

“Da, invitation, I can see,” North says, patting the air in a calming gesture. “What is big problem? Whoever has invitation, let them in!” He turns to Sandy. “Must be yours, eh? I wonder who found it.”

The question is soon answered, as the yeti shoots North a very skeptical look before leaving the room and returning with none other than Pitch Black in tow. Pitch Black, who is smiling, but not maliciously. Pitch Black, who is holding several small boxes wrapped in black paper.

North leans over to whisper in Bunny’s ear. “Whatever happens, make sure Pitch does not find out invitation was mistake. Tell others, quick. I will distract.”

“I hope I’m not too late. I spent a long time trying to figure out if the invitation was real or not. You’ve never sent me one before, and, frankly, this would be a weird year to invite me to anything.”

“Pitch,” North says, stepping towards him, a welcoming expression on his face, “why not invite you? Interaction is very important, da? Without you, would have taken very long time to realize. And everything is working out okay in the end! Even for you, see! You are part of party too.” _Thank goodness everyone else is already tipsy,_ he thinks.

“I guess that does make sense,” Pitch says, allowing himself to be led towards the heated bowl of wassail.

“Of course!” North fills a cup for Pitch, holding it a fraction of a second longer than necessary to will as much peace on Earth as he can into the drink. He’s pretty sure it will work. It’s clear that Pitch doesn’t want to fight right now, and North has managed to smooth over a few feuds in his time. Nothing should be able to ruin Christmas at the Pole under his watch.

“Thank you,” Pitch says, sounding so surprised that North feels a little uncomfortable. As if he wasn’t going to be giving at this time of year, in his own house!

“Oh, I saw that bringing gifts was an option on the invitation, and since I thought my person might not be that welcome—though now I see I was wrong—I did bring some. I was working on fairly short notice, though—well. Anyway, yours is the one on top.”

North takes the small box. “Would you like me to open it now? We exchanged other gifts earlier, did not know if you were going to come.”

Pitch nods, sipping from his cup of wassail.

Inside the box is a small figurine, seemingly carved out of some black stone. North peers at it closely before his eyes brighten in recognition.

“I know you don’t need him anymore,” Pitch says. “But I thought you should have his remnant.”

“For old times’ sake, da?” North says, smiling as he looks at the tiny model of the Krampus. “Thank you.”

Pitch looks down. “You’re welcome. I—I should go give the others their gifts.”

* * *

“What exactly is this?” Bunny asks Pitch. The box seems to hold a lot of tangible shadow, and it’s enough to make Bunny suspicious.

“It’s tame, don’t worry,” Pitch says, reaching in and pulling out the shadow, shaking it out like a tablecloth. It’s as tall as he is and Bunny realizes that it’s actually a silhouette of Pitch.

Pitch watches Bunny raise an eyebrow as he recognizes the shape. “It’ll move on its own if you tell it to. Look…it’s…it’s a target. Because I thought a bar of dark chocolate that said ‘I’m sorry’ seemed extremely stupid.”

Bunny smiles a little. “Okay. Maybe you really did hang out with North back in the day. This is actually pretty good.”

“Well, my third option was to offer a scratch behind the ears again, so don’t attribute any knowledge of gift-giving to me yet.”

* * *

“Very funny,” Jack says, looking at the tube of wood glue.

“Well, you never know when you might need it,” Pitch answers calmly.

* * *

Tooth shakes Pitch’s gift before opening it. It sounds like a bunch of little pieces of metal clanking together, and she screws up her face in concentration. Rare coins? Those were always useful, but didn’t seem very Pitch-like. But then again, nothing about this situation made a lot of sense. Pitch was here by accident, but he was being nice, maybe the solution to the problem with him was to keep inviting him to parties? She suspected this might be a drunk-Toothiana solution, but drunk-Toothiana had suggested to always grab onto Jack as a way of solving her problem of falling out of the air, and that had been a very good idea…

She opens the box and dozens of small iron keys fall into her hands. “I know the locks were broken last Easter,” Pitch says wryly. “So giving you all the keys is mostly symbolic.”

“Thank you,” Tooth says quietly. Symbols are the most important things, after all. Pitch nods and walks away to find Sandy. Once he’s gone, Tooth summons one of her most sober fairies and whispers something to her urgently.

* * *

Sandy is curled up on a high-backed couch in front of the fire, drowsily nursing a mug of mulled wine. There are two mini-fairies asleep in his hair now, and one elf curled into his side. He shoos them all away when Pitch approaches, holding one final black box. Pitch notices that Sandy’s the first person to smile at him first at the party so far, and the thought makes him gladder than seems rational. Must be the wassail.

He sits down next to Sandy and silently hands him the little box. When Sandy opens it, many creatures begin to emerge—creatures made of nightmaresand. They swim slowly around his head and he recognizes in them some of the strangest things that live in the depths of the ocean, some of their forms like pieces of abstract art. He smiles, and touches them just enough to add their natural bioluminescence, if they have it.

“Creatures like these will never see the light,” Pitch murmurs, watching Sandy watch them swim in the air. “On the abyssal plain they live and die without the sun. To them, it would be incomprehensible. Deadly. Only the strongest may venture up, even at night, and then they will only spawn legends of monsters. For the rest, they must remain below, within the incredible pressure that they need to keep them alive. In darkness they are born, in darkness they die. And this too is life.”

Sandy points at the little trails of light along their sides that he’s added. _Some of them make their own light then. Don’t need the sun as long as someone’s shining._

“Yes, but those lights merely draw prey to their deaths.”

_Or mates._

“To their deaths?”

Sandy laughs silently and reaches into his pajama pocket. He pulls out a small box wrapped in gold paper and hands it to Pitch. Pitch unwraps his gift—his first gift in centuries—slowly. For a moment, he looks into the box with no expression, and Sandy holds his breath. Finally, Pitch’s face softens as he draws out yards and yards of a single golden chain with links no bigger than grains of sand. “It’s not exactly the old collar now, is it?”

Sandy nods. _More fragile. Yours to keep or break. I won’t take it back._

“Thank you,” Pitch says.

The quiet moment is broken by the jingle of bells on elf hats from the top of the couch’s back. Pitch and Sandy look up without thinking, to find themselves facing three small manic grins and a leafy green sprig of foliage with white berries.

“Oh—er, would you look at that,” Pitch says.

Sandy smacks his forehead with his palm. Pitch hadn’t been here for the earlier mistletoe nonsense, so the elves showing up with it now just seems weird. Then again, he had told them to help him get _everyone_ at the party. He rolls his eyes at the elves and stands up on the couch cushions, facing Pitch.

Pitch already looks flustered, and Sandy hasn’t even done anything yet. Strange man. He hadn’t been this nervous while fighting. Before Sandy can do anything, though, Pitch leans forward, lightly taking hold of Sandy’s shoulders and pressing a careful kiss to his lips. He’s not exactly quick to back away either, and Sandy is recovering from the surprise enough to begin to close his eyes when Pitch does pull back, scooting over to the other edge of the couch.

He licks his lips and swallows nervously. “I had to, Sandy. The mistletoe. You know.”

_Well, this is an unexpected development,_ Sandy thinks, licking his own lips and wondering if North’s wassail is strong enough that only a taste will make him drunk, and knowing it isn’t.

“Hey, where’s Sandy?” They hear Tooth say from behind them.

“And where’s Pitch?” Bunny sounds suspicious.

“Heck, where’s the mistletoe?” Jack asks, laughing. “Probably not all in the same place, tell you what—hey Tooth, holly’s close enough to mistletoe, yeah?”

Pitch is wearing the most adorable look of mortification now. Sandy winks at him and asks for a shadow. When he provides it, Sandy grabs the elf holding the mistletoe and dumps him in. From the sound of it, he lands under one of the tables, in the shadows formed by the tablecloths.

“There you are!” North booms. “Join rest of us. We have more gifts for Pitch.”

* * *

Many hours later, Pitch returns to his lair, giddily drunk, wearing a new sable robe, his tooth back in his mouth, holding a pot containing a rare night-blooming flower in one hand and a list of roller coaster recommendations in the other. There’s a new gold chain wrapped round and round his waist, and remembering that makes him warmer than the fur of the robe.

Maybe things don’t always have to be all bad after all.

* * *

“That went a lot better than expected,” North muses, stroking his beard as he directs the yetis clearing up the party.

“I’ll invite him to New Year’s,” Tooth says, gathering her fairies up one by one with some difficulty, as none of them are flying in straight lines. It really was a good idea. “We’ll invite him to alllllll the parties, and then he won’t have time to be evil.”

Bunny rolls his eyes, but Jack nods thoughtfully.

* * *

By then, Sandy’s back on his dreamsand cloud high in the sky. All things considered, dropping his invitation down into Pitch’s lair turned out most excellently. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments from Tumblr:
> 
> sylphidine reblogged this from gretchensinister and added:  
> So many good lines. “Bunny,” North says, flashing him a jovial grin. “If I wanted to set up joke, I would bring up Albuquerque incident.”
> 
> and
> 
> “Very funny,” Jack says, looking at the tube of wood glue.
> 
> “Well, you never know when you might need it,” Pitch answers calmly.
> 
> and
> 
> She suspected this might be a drunk-Toothiana solution…
> 
> I am slain with much-needed fluph.
> 
> emeraldembers reblogged this from gretchensinister and added:  
> Oh gosh, darling, this was so, so, so lovely. I’m just filled to the brim with warm and fuzzy feelings and I never want to let them go. You are wonderful <3.
> 
> bowlingforgerbils said: This is the most wonderful thing ever. I love it. All of it. North’s quick thinking, the gifts, Sandy being a sneaky sassy sweetie, all of it!
> 
> datenshi-no-hime reblogged this from random-sedan and added:  
> Go Sandy! Sneaky little thing, isn’t he?
> 
> random-sedan reblogged this from gretchensinister and added:  
> Pitch’s gifts. Pitch’s GIIIIIFTS. Wood glue. And a target. XD This is ingenious, and so damn cute!! Pitch making nice is probably the most adorable thing in the world. <3


End file.
